Additional US$40 billion
The US Congress released Thursday a gigantic envelope of 40 billion dollars for Ukraine.
After being confined to weapons seen as defensive, Washington is now sending artillery, helicopters and drones to the Ukrainian army, whose soldiers are trained in the use of these weapons in the United States or in third countries before returning to the front. .
Within this new aid package, 6 billion dollars which should enable Ukraine to equip itself with armored vehicles and strengthen its anti-aircraft defense at a time when fighting is raging in the east and south from the country. Nearly 9 billion dollars are also planned to ensure, among other things, “the continuity of Ukrainian democratic institutions”, as well as a large humanitarian component.
Defenders of Azovstal “evacuated”
Russia announced on Thursday that nearly 800 Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the bowels of the gigantic Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol had surrendered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,730 soldiers evacuated since Monday.
Moscow released footage showing cohorts of men in full combat gear, some with crutches or bandages, emerging after a long battle that had become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.
kyiv has not spoken of surrender, and Ukrainian officials decline to comment on the situation at this stage. President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on Monday of an “evacuation” aimed at safeguarding the lives of these Ukrainian “heroes” through international mediation.
Twitter tackles misinformation
The social network Twitter announced on Thursday that it would put warnings on certain obviously misleading messages on the war in Ukraine.
To read tweets deemed problematic, one will first have to click on a message announcing that spreading false or misleading information can have harmful consequences on people’s real lives, explained the responsible for the questions of integrity on the platform, Yoel Roth, in an online publication.
As soon as Twitter has determined that a message is false, the platform will also make sure not to automatically accelerate its spread. Furthermore, it will not be possible to “love”, to retweet or share problematic messages.
First meeting of the American and Russian chiefs of staff
The US and Russian chiefs of staff spoke on the phone Thursday for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the Pentagon said.
Generals Mark Milley and Valéri Guerassimov “discussed several security concerns”, said the spokesman for the American staff, Colonel Dave Butler. By mutual agreement, they decided not to publish the details of their conversation, he added.
This telephone conversation comes less than a week after a meeting held between the American Minister of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, who also spoke to each other for the first time since the start of the Russian offensive.
With Agence France-Presse